


Sinners & Saints

by TheThirdGreywaren (ShelbyDraven)



Category: Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory, Romance, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 05:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9969473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShelbyDraven/pseuds/TheThirdGreywaren
Summary: Two strangers arrive from the thriving Capital Wasteland with an important agenda: discover what happened to the Prydwen and all of its passengers. As they delve deeper into the case of the missing airship, they enlist the help of a local synth detective with a time bomb unknown even to him. Through it all, a new threat rises from the ruins to initiate a war.





	

**Act One**

”Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

\- Seneca

Consciousness came in a wave of agony.

Eliza spluttered as something warm dripped down the back of her throat, a metallic tang coating the inside of her mouth. Instinctively her head turned to spit out the thick mixture of bloody saliva, and the chunks of rubble pressing into her cheek was the first time she realized that she was lying down. Her chest burned with both the desire to cough and the ache of her ribs. Trying to breathe sent electricity through her body, and vertigo swamping her mind made her nauseous. It was impossible to breathe through her nose, but every deep inhale through her mouth expanded her ribs painfully.

She lifted one of her hands to gently prod her upper ribs, the other lifting to press against the side of her neck to check her pulse. There was no blood on her torso, so a rib hadn’t pierced her flesh, and she let out a ghost of a relieved sigh when she found no damage to her upper ribcage. The fingers she had pressed to her neck moved up to wipe away the blood dripping from her nose and painting her lips. Her other hand had finally found the fractures in her lower ribs.

The diagnosis was as unpleasant as the injuries felt: hairline fractures in the 7th to 10th ribs, broken nose, possible concussion. She would need three stimpacks for the ribs, a med-x for the pain, and a night spent in an actual bed.

Charon had her backpack, though, since it had been her turn to carry… something. Her thoughts tangled in her head like the strands of lights used to decorate the fake tree during Christmas time. She had always been in charge of the lights because no one trusted Butch with electricity and Amata only liked decorating with ornaments. Their parents had preferred to socialize over warm beer, but her father would always come over to check on her. He would ruffle her wild dark curls and offer to help, and she would always decline.

_I can do it myself, Dad._

_I can carry him, Char._

Her thoughts had changed course as suddenly as a gunshot, and she was left reeling at the memories that surfaced. She had been carrying Duncan because his legs hurt and Charon was expecting trouble as they neared the city ruins. Fatigue was setting in after the day of traveling, but Eliza had taken the little boy in her arms stubbornly. Charon had been focused on making sure she drop from exhaustion, and so was she. The maniacal laughter of the super mutants had startled both of them.

Eliza had hidden Duncan in a semi-intact car while Charon lay cover fire and distracted the mutants. She had turned around to see two of the green-skinned monsters rushing at Charon, and had panicked. The pistol shots peppering their bodies had only angered them, and while one attempted to grab the shotgun out of the ghoul’s hands, the other cleared the distance to Eliza in just a few strides.

It had grabbed her by the waist, her ribs cracking under the vice grip, and the mutant had thrown her fifteen feet away, into the pile of rubble that had once been a sidewalk.

Charon had shouted her name, and her world was thrown into darkness.

She twisted her neck to look around for her companion, fear squeezing her chest more painfully than her broken ribs when she realized that daylight had faded to the last pink and purple streaks at the horizon. She was unconscious for an hour or two, then, since the sun had sunk so low. Good fortunate allowed her to wake up at all, since the mutants would have killed her as easily as the head trauma could have.

Bad fortune left her here, alone in the fading daylight without medical supplies.

The fear gave her enough adrenaline to sit up. The process left her teeth breaking the skin of her lip from suffocating her pained cries, but she was just grateful that she had made any progress at all.

She wasn’t entirely successful in masking her pained noises: Duncan’s worried face peered out from the window of a nearby car. When he saw that she noticed him he burst into tears and scrambled out of the car to run to her side.

“I thought they took you!” The boy paused on the edge of the rubble pile, eyeing Eliza and her injuries nervously. “Your nose is bleeding.”

With a shaky hand, Eliza gently wiped away some of the drying blood, grimacing. “I know, kiddo. I hit my nose a little too hard. Do you have your backpack?” If she was remembering correctly, and if she was lucky enough, there was a small medical kit tucked into the bottom of the boy’s bag. It wasn’t the arsenal of medicine that her bag contained, but it would be enough to dull the pain and help her move without passing out.

Duncan nodded and ran back to the car, eager to help. Eliza scanned the terrain carefully, disappointment settling in her chest when she couldn’t find Charon. She did see the corpses of five super mutants, their weapons and blood decorating the cracked asphalt road, but that was it.

At the sound of a strained grunt, Eliza’s head snapped back towards the car Duncan had retreated to. She sucked in a surprised breath at the sight of the little boy struggling to carry over a familiar army green backpack with various colored patches.

It was her backpack. Charon had it slung over his shoulder when he started attacking the mutants to give her enough time to hide Duncan away. He didn’t have the time to leave the bag in the car before then; which meant that he placed it there after she had been knocked unconscious.

But if that’s the case, then where was he?

Duncan finally heaved the bag over to Eliza’s side, panting from the overexertion, and had gained the courage to climb over the broken concrete to sit by Eliza’s legs. He silently watched as she slowly rummaged through the bag’s contents before pulling out the three items she needed most: three stimpacks, a med-x, and a teddy bear with more patches than the bag it was carried in.

She gave the patchwork bear to Duncan first, careful to avoid staining it with the blood clinging to her palms. She cracked a small smile when the boy buried his face in its fur with a muffled thank you. Satisfied that Duncan seemed to calm down enough to wipe away his lingering tears, Eliza turned to her medical supplies.

She started with a stimpack in between her 9th and 8th ribs, the sharp pinch of the needle and the throbbing ache of her ribs growing duller when she pushed the plunger on the syringe. Her soft sigh of relief caught Duncan’s attention, and he watched her with wide eyes as she recapped the needle before sliding it into the side pocket of her bag.

“Does that work still?” Duncan asked suddenly. Eliza paused in her task of preparing the second needle, her dark eyes flickering to him in a silent question. She followed his gaze to the side pocket of used needles and gently shook her head.

While he was still focused on squeezing his stuffed bear and staring at the stimpacks, Eliza carefully poised the syringe over her left cheek. After a low breath to prepare herself, she slid it into her cheek and pushed the plunger slowly.

Her face began to itch immediately, but Eliza only felt relief as the blood trickling from her nose stopped as the broken bone began to heal. Again, she discarded the used stimpack in the pocket of her bag and did the same to the med-x syringe after injecting it between the same two ribs that she used the stimpack on.

With her broken bones half-healed and the pain dulled to the point that she could breathe normally, Eliza finally found the strength to climb to her feet. With one hand she grabbed the strap of her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, and with the other, she gently took Duncan’s hand into her own. She led them to the car that Duncan had been hiding in and coaxed the boy into the backseat before placing their stuff in the driver’s seat and climbing in back with him.

Duncan clung close to her side as she covered them both in the thin blanket tucked at the bottom of her bag. She wrapped him in a side hug, resting her chin on the crown of his head as he pressed his face into her shirt.

They sat in the dark silence for a few moments, catching their breath. Finally, Eliza asked the question that had been threatening to suffocate her since the very moment she noticed his absence.

“Duncan, do you know where Charon is?”

She strained to listen to his response as he muttered against her shirt, “He went to find you and he wouldn’t let me come because he was following the monster and I coulda got hurt.”

She knew she wouldn’t have liked the answer, but hearing Duncan say it out loud was worse than she thought. Charon left Duncan behind just to find her? When he could have gotten killed by himself? When RJ was expecting them by tomorrow night?

Even when he knew that she kept his contract tucked in the small pocket of her backpack?

 _You big idiot_ , Eliza thought, but she would have sold her soul just to see him appear before her eyes, alive and grumpy as usual.

Instead, she would have to wait until he came back who-knows-when. Maybe it would be by morning, or maybe never at all. Maybe he would get himself killed in a super mutant’s den just because he thought that she was there.

All she knew for sure was that they had enough canned food to last for four days if they stretched it out, and enough purified water for a week. That’s all they had before they would need to scavenge for more supplies. As she took a mental inventory of nearby buildings that could be hiding valuable resources, the sky darkened to pitch black and Duncan succumbed to Sandman’s touch. Eliza wrapped the blanket tighter around the both of them and settled in to watch the pitch darkness until daybreak.

She had all the patience in the world when it came to Charon.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my new big project, and I hope it will make some sense as we move on. There are five acts with six chapters each, and they are all going to be around this length. Regular updates are planned, and usually, followed without interruption. I try my hardest, but I do have school, work, and kids that demand my attention, so please be patient.
> 
> With that being said, please leave a comment or kudos! Posting something new is always scary, and knowing that someone read it and liked it will make my day. If you want to message me, my Tumblr is shackledbiotic!
> 
> Next Scheduled Update: Wednesday, March 8th, 7:00 pm EST.


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